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A study of Edward Fitzball, a melodramatic dramatist of 19th- century England, whose primary themes of horror, crime, and madness, reflected the insecurities of the time and foreshadowed the sensationalist media of ours. His life, the contemporary society and theater, and his dramatic principles and influences, are all considered. No index. Paper edition (unseen), $15.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Turning to his own extensive maritime experience, Cooper's novel, written in Paris in 1827, reflects his immersion in the romantic movement that was sweeping the Continent. European readers enjoyed his poetic and imaginative portrayal of the sea, while American readers were interested in how he depicted the early stirrings of nationalism in the New World decades prior to the Revolution. Cooper's striking association of the sublime power of nature with the rebellious spirit of his pirate-hero established and defined the sea novel as a literary genre. By far the most influential of his maritime tales, The Red Rover was read and admired by Goethe and Berlioz, Melville and Conrad. This edition, the first to be based on Cooper's original manuscript, offers the modern reader a major document of romanticism and a compelling narrative of adventure at sea.
During the 1820s and 30s nautical melodramas "reigned supreme" on London stages, entertaining the mariners and maritime workers who comprised a large part of the audience for small theatres. These plays mixed sentimental moments and comic interludes of domestic melodrama with patriotic images that communicated and reinforced imperial themes. However, generally the study of British theatre history moves from medieval and renaissance plays directly to the realism and naturalism of late Victorian and modern drama. Readers typically encounter a gap between Restoration and eighteenth-century plays like those of Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and late-nineteenth plays by Henrik Ib...
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This book shows how prose writers in the Victorian period grappled with the sea as a setting, a shaper of plot and character, as a structuring motif, and as a source of metaphor.
Acts of Desire is a study of theatrical depictions of illicit female sexuality, from seduction and prostitution to bigamy and adultery, from the beginning of the nineteenth century through to the 1930s.
Drama in the Romantic period underwent radical changes affecting theatre performance, acting, and audience. Theatres were rebuilt and expanded to accommodate larger audiences, and consequently acting styles and the plays themselves evolved to meet the expectations of the new audiences. This book examines manifestations of change in acting, stage design, setting, and the new forms of drama. Actors exercised a persistent habit of stepping out of their roles, whether scripted or not. Burwick traces the radical shifts in acting style from Garrick to Kemble and Siddons, and to Kean and Macready, adding a new dimension to understanding the shift in cultural sensibility from early to later Romantic literature. Eye-witness accounts by theatre-goers and critics attending plays at the major playhouses of London, the provinces, and on the Continent are provided, allowing readers to identify with the experience of being in the theatre during this tumultuous period.